Social halitosisAccording to Albrecht, social halitosis is the conversational equivalent of a bad breath where one exhibits inauthentic and inconsiderate behavior. This is much like your friend who is engaged in multi-level marketing and tends to be insensitive, inconsiderate, and keeps on gently harassing you every now and then to join their group. Unfortunately, because of our training to listen politely, most of us don't know how to blew this people away.

I guess that is why salespersons in appliance or grocery stores who are demonstrating a product repetitively, much like a robotic mindless recitation of a scripted message, turns us off.

There is also your friend whom whenever you meet would only want to talk about themselves, their problem, or their travels the whole time. This they do wherever they go or whom they get to talk to. They want their concerns to be the center of discussion.

Social flatulenceThere is also social flatulence. You know you are with a person that has this when they exhibit some form of behavior or reaction that only has one intent, to be noticed. They are usually inappropriate with what they say, incosiderate, crude, lack of respect, in short - a "social fart".

Social dandruffYou know that a person has social dandruff when they selfishly impose their interest on others. This is like doing a hair, make-up, or perfume touch up even if your "beauty effects" are spreading to other people. Talking loud on the phone in a public train. People who yell in a public Internet cafe that tends to disturb other renters. Or simply blowing away people just because they have a different political or religious views in life.

Of course, this is not to mention that we have friends who are probably like the Dilbert comic characters whose self-esteem, limited self-insight, adolescent-like sense of humor affects their relationship with people and career growth.

One way or another, most of us had committed one or all of the above toxic behaviors. Albrecht's book aims to teach improvement in one's skills of interaction. The book covers five dimensions or categories of competence such as:

Janette Toral is the site owner of DigitalFilipino.com. At her highest value, she delivers independent insights through research, education, training, e-learning, consulting, public speaking.

She is a Fascinate Certified Advisor, Certified ScrumMaster, and Certified Scrum Product Owner.

She participated in the IVLP or International Visitors Leadership Program 2011 (individual program) sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. Featured as 1 of the 6 women innovator at the APEC Women and Economy Summit 2011, San Francisco, USA.

She got recognized as Champion of Philippine Internet and E-Commerce Hall of Fame Award given by Asian Institute of E-Commerce in 2010; Globe Tattoo Digital Elder Award 2009; E-Services E-Champion Awards 2008 - Policy and Legal Category by the Department of Trade and Industry / CITEM / Board of Investments; International Schools Cyberfair Ambassador Award 2004 and 2002 given by Global Schoolnet USA; World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) Philippines Awards 2003 E-Learning Category for her E-Commerce Workshop Online.

Janette, as former technical consultant / executive director of the Congressional Oversight Committee for the E-Commerce Law, was instrumental for the creation of policies in the area of consumer protection (value added services, e-commerce, electronic banking), data privacy for the private sector, and acceptance of electronic payment in government.

As founding president of the Philippine Internet Commerce Society, she was instrumental for the passage of the Y2K Law and E-Commerce Law. She retired in 2002. Other organizations she served as board member in the past were the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team (PH-CERT) and Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP).

She is a distinguished expert for the 2nd Expert Committee of APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance.